Olsen gives a nicely reasoned argument as to how Tom Delay and Texas Senator John "I understand why they like to kill judges" Conryn are leading the country towards anarchy. For Olsen, the course charted by Delay, Conryn, and others in the "Justice Sunday" crowd represents the tyranny of the mob. Olsen joins John Warner, Chris Shays, and the articulate John Danforth, who wrote a screed similar to Olsen's, last week .The current GOP coalition is obviously coming up against its own limitations. The core of the Republican party has always been the classic Federalist formulation of a strong central government combined with a pro-business focus which formed an alliance between the ruling class and an ever-growing middle class. It's the party of Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln (railroad lawyer), Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Goldwater, and Nixon.

In 1976 and 1980, Reagan made a deal with the Federalist's and traditional Republican's version of Satan -- the working-class mob. A mob which happens to be socially conservative and which historically tends to be suspicious and downright hateful of the classic Federalist equation. Reagan courted the mob -- a mob overtly evangelical, subtly racist (which is why overt racism along the lines of Trent Lott's had to be so severely punished by the party chiefs), and ultimately anarchist in its outlook. Reagan forged the coalition by getting the country club/libertarian wing (himself included) to give lip service to the mob's platform, and a threw an anti-porn Attorney General Meese (echoed by the appointment of anti-porn Attorney General Ashcroft by GW Bush) to sate the mob. This paradoxical coalition served the GOP well from 1980 through the last election, enabling their takeover of the federal government.

And now Satan wants his due. The devil wants those nasty, principled judges to collectively burn in a huge, purging pyre so the mob's will (often referred to as "God's will") shall be done on Earth as it is in their fantasies.

These fantasies not only disturb social liberals, they disturb CEOs of multinationals. For every judge who won't order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube replaced and who interprets the 14th amendment as extending due process to homosexuals, is the same judge who will be just as strenuous when it comes to protecting the property rights of corporations, a judge who will continue to reaffirm the 14th amendment protections found in the 1886 case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad.

Rule of law, especially when it comes to Lockean protection of private property, is the absolute foundation of the United States, as it was re-formed by the Constitution. What Olsen, Scalia, Danforth et al, so plainly see, is that if the mob can be emboldened to overthrow the judiciary on matters of feeding tubes, gay marriage, etc., and is ultimately successful in their overthrow,then the model for mob rule can be adapted for the overthrow of property rights. A sort of domestic domino-theory dynamic will be in place, which has some appeal to those on the left. And that's what has the country club/libertarian wing of the GOP freaked out.